My Photographic Journey (Part 1)

It's been quite the tough past weeks with the battling of the different setbacks that have come my way.  So much so that even my passion for photography was waning a little bit.  Not that I don't still love it, it is just I haven't been able to get out doing any which slowly mentally beats you down. 

We all know during these times of tribulations we have to find other ways to be happy and inspired so I thought a fun little project would be a mini photography year in review. 

A Search for Incredible

I will not write too long of a post today as I don't want to overwhelm you all after being idle for so long.  :)

As many of you know for years now Jason Mraz has been my all time favourite artist.  He has held a place over every other artist ever since I heard his very first songs back when I was in University.  Since then it is very rare to hear many other artists playing in my ipod or computer, just ask Amy if you don't believe me. 

There is something about his music that just touches deep into my soul and was one of the sources of comfort for me when going through some of the most difficult times of my life, including my chemotherapy treatments.  While in the hospital I set aside an hour everyday to just "be".  Instead of meditation I would lay in a complete relaxed state with my eyes closed focused on deep breathing and listen to his music.  I run to his music, sleep to his music, use it while doing photography to get relaxed and open minded.  It is an all around therapeutic experience.  For those that don't know much about him message me and I will gladly give you a playlist to open your mind to his wonderful music :)

I was just searching the internet the other day trying to find the name of his latest song when I came across an initiative that he is part of that I wanted to share with all of you, not only because I respect his music so much but also because the initiative sounds really interesting.

Over the course of the past two years I have heard from many you how incredible of a story I have and how inspirational it is to others.  Well if you truly believe that here is your chance to share that.  Jason Mraz is part of an initiative called In Search of Incredible. 

If you truly believe that my story is an incredible one worth sharing than I urge you to visit this webpage and submit it.  You can submit anything you like, whether it is something I wrote or a story of something I did, anything that is incredible to you.  There is no pressure on anyone to participate, I just thought I would provide you all a forum to share :) 
Oh and you don't have to only share my story :)  If there is another story that is truly incredible to you then please share that as well. 

The link is as follows:
http://www.insearchofincredible.com/us

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Time for an Update

Well it has been quite a long time since I wrote a real post on this blog and I thought the best thing to do to start the fall off was catch you all up on the happenings of the past month.

The Move
The final weeks of August took on a lot busier tone for Amy and I than we originally planned.  With two weeks to go in August we came across a beautifully redone home in the Hamilton beach community and decided to move.  We weren't actively looking but this place filled all the wants we wanted so we decided to go take a peak.  When we saw the place we fell in love and signed the lease.  Then came the task of giving our 60 day notice, packing, planning and executing the move, and hopefully finding new renters to take over our place so we didn't lose 2 months rent.  In the end it was a very stressful two weeks of packing and continually showing the apartment to potential renters, but we moved successfully and got a renter on the very last day.  I can tell you for sure that realtor will never make it onto my list of potential future jobs!  So now our little family is back in hamilton living even closer to the water than we did before (if that was possible).

Since the Move
Although the move went smoothly it has been a rough couple weeks around the household since.  There has been illness after illness making its way through the home.  I have had been battling with GVHD in my mouth for months now.  It is a pretty painful experience and take most enjoyment out of food (some days you will even see tears coming down my cheeks as I eat).  We started a mouth wash to help it out but it can cause infections as well.  My mouth was starting to get better but then those pesky infections came so I am fighting off a fungal and viral infection in my mouth.  Thankfully I am on the therapeutic doses to hopefully clean it up promptly.  On top of this I have battling something in my GI tract the past two weeks.  I won't go into to much detail but it isn't that pleasant ;)  We are just waiting back on tests to find out if it is an infection causing it or whether it is a GVHD flare up.

Is My Cancer Different

What a common question that is asked when we are all first diagnosed with cancer.  We often have so many questions and in my experience have found that it was often very difficult to find single sources of good information.  Instead my research was done spending hours on the internet looking through millions of webpages and trying to disseminate tonnes of information, even sometimes conflicting.

I have been made aware of a new program called "Is My Cancer Different" which is a single information source for Cancer patients to go and find out some of the answers to this very specific question.

Is My Cancer Different is an online movement created to educate individuals about the personalized treatments available for a range of cancers whose manifestations vary widely from person to person. In recent years technology and research have vastly improved pathways to more efficient/successful treatments, but information concerning the benefits of molecular-level diagnostics and personalized care has been slow to make it’s way to patients. Is My Cancer Different goal is to inspire people to advocate for themselves by asking a crucial question and providing powerful information on why, when and how it could matter to their treatment strategy.    Although this information wasn't around when I was going through my treatments I did benefit from personalized molecular-level diagnostics.  I had a molecular abnormality in my leukemia called the philadelphia chromosome in which I was given a designer drug to specifically target that abnormality during the course of my treatment.  Many studies have now shown that the use of this drug when treating the philadelphia chromosome has greatly increased the patient's chances of achieving and maintaining remission.   Is My Cancer Different isn't for everyone but there are readers of this blog who will find this website informative at the very least.  So please if you have a few spare minutes go poke around the website, you never know what you might learn :)   http://www.ismycancerdifferent.com/

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